


Partners in Crime

by Elthadriel



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Ana isn't always a great mum, Friendship, Gen, Platonic Cuddling, Post-Recall, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2019-02-12 11:17:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12958053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elthadriel/pseuds/Elthadriel
Summary: The recall had caused a lot of stress for Fareeha, but at least she got to see her best friend again.





	Partners in Crime

**Author's Note:**

> Fareeha and Jesse are best friends, and Jeff Kaplan is going to confirm it any day now. 
> 
> I wrote this between the projects I was working on for nano when they were being awkward. I was planning for one of them to be the first thing I posted in this fandom, but whatever, this one is actually finished and they still need some editing.

Fareeha slouched lower on the hard bench, folding her arms tight across her chest, hands tucked under her armpits, trying to suppress a shiver. Gibraltar wasn’t exactly the coldest place, but winter was starting to settle, and honestly, she had never really liked the cold. Give her blistering heat any day. The hood of her thick coat was pulled up, and with her chin tucked down against her chest her face was completely hidden. 

At least the cold made that inconspicuous; she had promised Winston she would keep a low profile.

They hadn’t wanted her to go at all, but if she spent one more moment in that fucking base with everyone giving her that look, she was going to start screaming. She took a deep breath, trying to reign in her spiralling thoughts. 

She looked up at the screen showing the arrivals. Was there any damned country in the world were the buses ran on time? 

Fareeha’s phone buzzed, probably just Winston wanting an update, he worried like that, but the risk that it might be her mother caused her to ignore it. She wasn’t ready to decide how she felt about the whole situation with her mother’s return from the dead, and no one, least of all her mother, seemed willing to give her time to figure it out.

Hence the insistence that she meet their latest recalled agent at the bus station.

The only reason of course, it had nothing to do with the fact she hadn’t seen Jesse in almost a decade and she had missed him like crazy. At least, that was what she was going to insist to him, couldn’t have him knowing that she liked him. 

She wondered if he’d recognise her. She’d seen a picture of him on the news, and he looked the same as always, only hair and beard messier without Reyes around to insist on keeping it trimmed, and he still wore the same stupid hat as always. She felt like she had changed completely in the last nine years. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

The arrival board promised the bus was only a few minutes out, and with a huff she got to her feet, pacing to try and keep herself warm. If Jesse had missed his bus and she had waited out here for nothing she was going to kill him. She hadn’t even been able to play on her phone as her hands had gotten too cold, and that was before she had been avoiding looking at her texts.

She wished Jesse had gotten an earlier bus; it would have been nice to get to wonder around in the day light, though she knew realistically she would have had a harder time convincing anyone to let her go if it wasn’t already dark. She frowned. It was like being a child again, everyone feeling like they had a say in what she was allowed to do, as if she wasn’t a soldier with a proven track record. 

“Got a light, sweetheart?” A man drawled from behind her.

She spun around, hackles up from the comment, but despite not immediately placing his voice, Jesse was an obvious figure the second she laid eyes on him. He was still wearing the hat after all, low profile be damned.

“Jess!” Abandoning all promises not to draw attention to themselves, she threw herself into him arms, laughing as he stumbled a little before recovering and hugging her just as tightly, hauling her briefly off the ground.

“You packed on some muscle didn’t ya?” Jesse was grinning as he pulled away from her, holding her shoulders, as he looked her over. 

She smirked, poking his belly. “Looks like it wasn’t muscle you’ve been putting on.”

He made an exaggerated noise of offence. “Hard to keep a trim figure when you’re living off diner food. ‘sides, I always hated running laps.”

She sniggered and grabbed his bag off the ground, tossing it easily over her shoulder despite his protests. Giving up on getting it back as she started to lead the way, he jogged to catch up, throwing his arm around her should, dragging her close.

“You should join me for my morning run,” Fareeha said. Her hands were still cold, but she was warming up quickly now they were moving, and the heat of Jesse against her was helping. 

“I’ll pass. Reyes ain’t here to yell at me, so I’m planning to sleep past dawn.”

“I can kick your ass same as Gabe could,” she said, and flexed just enough so he could feel her muscles shifting under his hand. It was probably true too. Jesse was a better shot than her, a better shot than most people, but in hand to hand against her he wouldn’t stand a chance. Bullying him into jogging with her or not, she’d have to get him out onto the training mat.

“You sound like you mother.” 

Fareeha froze.

“You okay?” 

Fareeha considered not saying anything, but he would find out soon anyway, and she would rather he heard it from her. “My mum faked her death, to get out of Overwatch. She’s answered the recall.”

Jesse was silent for a second, but the arm around her shoulder tightened minutely. “You had no idea?”

“No.” 

“Shit.” He paused, considering. “You wanna talk about it?” 

“No.” She stared down at her feet. “I’ll let you know.”

“Sure thing.” 

Fuck, this is why she had always liked Jesse so much. Even as a kid he had known when not to push her. She liked the former members of Overwatch, she really did, but with Gabriel absent, and the tension with her mother, it had all felt a little off. Jesse was already helping things fall back into place.

Without warning he tugged down her hood.

“Hey!” Before she could protest too much he forced his own hat onto her head

“Shit Jess, I’m not a kid anymore,” she laughed, batting his hands away. Despite her protests she left the hat. At least he had ended the tension. 

“You’ve been sayin’ that since I met you, at thirteen.”

She pouted, more for his benefit than for any real offence. “I was more mature at thirteen than you are now, McCree.”

“I reckon that’s true enough.” 

She hadn’t brought a car to pick Jesse up, but whole country was tiny, and from the bus station to the base of the rock was only just over a mile. From there it wasn’t much further of a hike up to the supposedly abandoned Overwatch base. It brought less attention to them if they walked in and out rather than driving. 

“’bout fucking time you got into Overwatch though, never much understood your mama insistence that you not join,” Jesse said. They had left the edges of the town already, walking along the side of a dark road. The only sound other than their feet scraping on the ground was the soft breeze in the grass.

“Things are different this time,” Fareeha said, as way of answer. She wasn’t completely sure if that was true, but she wanted so badly to believe it. She didn’t want things to end the same way they had last time. “There’s a couple of new people you’ll like.”

“Well, once I’ve showered, and had a fuckin’ nap you should get them too together and we’ll have some drinks, celebrate you finally joining our ranks.” Jesse articulated his point by tugging the front of his hate down over her eyes. She laughed as she pushed him off.

This tone couldn’t last, not with everything that was at stake, but it was nice to just mess around with a friend for a moment, pretend that she was still the kid who had thought Jesse was the coolest person she had ever met. 

Thankfully that illusion hadn’t lasted long.

“I’m sure they can’t wait to hang out with an old man like you.”

Jesse almost missed a step. “Hell, Far, we are the old assholes this time. Am I gonna have to start being responsible and making people eat their greens?”

She laughed softly.

“Please tell me I’m not going to have to find some poor shit to bully into becoming a functioning person. Not sure I got my Reyes frown perfected yet.” He gave a poor impersonation of Gabriel’s scowl. 

“Not sure anyone in their right mind would let you have influence over anyone,” Fareeha said. 

“I had an influence on you, and you turned out okay.” 

“Sneaking me candy doesn’t count as having an influence on me.”

“You sure?” He asked.

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, unsurprised to find him smirking at her. “Pretty sure.”

The walk was familiar to both of them, agents no stranger to slipping out of the base for a bit of freedom. When her mum was stationed here Fareeha used to beg anyone who would listen to take her down to the beach. She had spent as much time in the water as on land. 

She remembered it as a simpler time, but she was beginning to realise she had just been sheltered from the worst of it.

“I wasn’t kidding about that light, darling,” Jesse said, pulling her from her thoughts.

She pulled a face. “If you’re smoking you are doing it ten feet away and down wind.” 

Jesse’s attempt to lighten the mood failed, and they fell silent again. 

“I’m glad you’re here,” she said at last.

He exhaled slowly. “Yeah, well. Someone has to help clean up this mess.” Neither of them mentioned that Gabriel was part of the mess, a topic they had been skirting around all conversation. Second only to her mother coming back, the whole situation with Reaper was top of her list of shit she wasn’t sure how to deal with yet. 

At least with Jesse here she had someone else to brainstorm with.

Fuck. She hadn’t wanted to get into this stuff tonight, had wanted to enjoy seeing Jesse again for at least a day before things got heavy.

They made it to the fence at the base of the rock, and she led him away from the main gate along to where a hole had been cut for their comings and goings. It was off the main path and hidden behind some thick undergrowth. So far it was keeping their activity mostly unnoticed. 

They were quite as they ducked through, and made their way back to the path; it was still a ways up to the base but if she squinted she could see the dark outline silhouetted against the night sky. She kicked at the dirt at their feet as they started to walk, trying to think of something, anything to say.

She looked up at the path winding ahead of them, an idea forming. She shifted Jesse’s bag on her shoulder.

“Hey, Jess.” She nudged him and ducked out from under his arm.

He eyed her suspiciously.

“Race you to the top.”

He laughed, sounding a little nervous. “I don’t think so, sweetheart. Didn’t much like racing Gabe up here when he was feeling sadistic, not gonna do it now.”

She raised her eyebrows at him. “Last one up is does the other’s dishes for a week.”

“We have to do dishes?” He asked.

She laughed and took off running.

“Far? Seriously, we have to do dishes?” She heard him swear and then take off after her.

Even with his bag, there was no way he was going to catch her. Her best friend was back, and she wasn’t going to have to do her dishes for a while. Things were starting to look up.


End file.
